Joe Abercrombie - Half the World

Thorn felt the pouch weigh against her chest as she shifted uncomfortably. “He was killed in a duel with Grom-gil-Gorm.”

“The Breaker of Swords. A fearsome warrior. A terrible enemy to Gettland. And now we face him again. I once had a Chosen Shield of my own.”

“Hurik,” said Thorn. “I saw him fight in the training square. He was a great warrior.”

“He betrayed me,” said the queen, her cold eyes on Thorn. “I had to kill him.”

She swallowed. “Oh …”

“I have never found one worthy to take his place.” There was a long and pregnant silence. “Until now.”

Thorn’s eyes went wide. She looked at Yarvi, and back to the queen. “Me?”

Yarvi held up his crippled hand. “Not me.”

Thorn’s heart was suddenly hammering. “But … I never passed my warrior’s test. I never swore a warrior’s oath-”

“You’ve passed far sterner tests,” said the queen, “and the only oath a Chosen Shield must swear is to me.”

Thorn slid off her stool and knelt at Laithlin’s feet, this time without knocking anything into the fire. “Tell me the words, my queen.”

“You are a brave one.” Laithlin leaned forward, putting her fingertips gently on Thorn’s scarred cheek. “But you should not be rash.”

“You should be careful what oaths you swear,” said Father Yarvi.

“This is a burden as well as an honor. You might have to fight for me. You might have to die for me.”

“Death waits for us all, my queen.” Thorn did not have to think. It felt more right than anything she had ever done. “I’ve dreamed of this since I could hold a sword. I am ready. Tell me the words.”

“Father Yarvi?” Koll hurried into the room, flushed with excitement and greatly out of breath.

“Not now, Koll-”

“A crow’s come!” And he held out a little scrap of paper, tiny marks scrawled across it.

“Mother Scaer replies, at last.” Yarvi spread it out upon his knees, eyes flickering over the signs. Thorn watched in wonder. To capture words in lines on a scrap of nothing seemed like magic to her as surely as what Skifr had done out on the steppe.

“What does it say?” asked Laithlin.

“Grom-gil-Gorm accepts King Uthil’s challenge. His raids will cease until midsummer’s day. Then the warriors of Vansterland and Gettland will meet in battle at Amon’s Tooth.” Yarvi turned the paper over, and narrowed his eyes.

“What else?”

“The Breaker of Swords makes a challenge of his own. He asks if King Uthil will meet him in the square, man against man.”

“A duel,” said Laithlin.

“A duel.”

“The king is not well enough to fight.” Laithlin looked over at her son. Her minister. “He cannot be well enough to fight.”

“With the favor of Father Peace, it will never come to that.”

“Your circles move, Father Yarvi.”

He crumpled up the paper and tossed it into the firepit. “They move.”

“Then we must be ready to ride north within the week.” Queen Laithlin stood, tall and stern, wise and beautiful, and kneeling at her feet Thorn thought there could never have been a woman more worth following. “Teach her the words.”

It had rained, and the fire was gone. Everything was gone, more or less. A few charred uprights. A few tottering chimney stacks. The rest of the village of Halleby was mud-churned ash and splinters. A few people picking through for anything worth saving and not finding much. A few others gathered around some fresh turned earth, heads hanging.

“A sorry place at the best of times,” muttered Brand.

“And these ain’t them,” said Rauk.

An old man knelt in the wreckage of a house, all smeared with soot and his wispy hair blowing, croaking at the sky, “They took my sons. They took my sons. They took my sons,” over and over.

“Poor bastard.” Rauk wiped his running nose on the back of one hand and winced again as he hefted his shield. He’d been wincing ever since they left Thorlby.

“Your arm hurt?” asked Brand.

“Took an arrow a few weeks back. I’m all right.” He didn’t look all right. He looked thin, and drained out, and his watery eyes held none of the challenge they used to. Brand would never have thought he might miss that. But he did.

“You want me to haul your shield awhile?”

A flicker of that old pride, then Rauk seemed to sag. “Thanks.” He let his shield drop, groaned through clenched teeth as he worked his arm around in a circle. “Didn’t look much of a wound but, gods, it hurts.”

“No doubt it’s on the mend already,” said Brand, swinging the extra shield across his back.

Didn’t look like they’d need it today, the Vanstermen were long gone. Just as well, because it was some sorry scrapings Hunnan had gathered. A couple dozen boys with gear that didn’t fit, hardly older than Koll and a lot less use, staring at the burned-out wreckage with big, scared eyes. A handful of greybeards, one without a tooth in his head, another without a hair on his, a third with a sword speckled hilt to blunt point with rust. Then there were the wounded. Rauk, and a fellow who’d lost an eye whose bandages kept leaking, and another with a bad leg who’d slowed them down the whole way, and Sordaf, who’d nothing wrong with him at all far as Brand could tell. Apart from being as big an idiot as ever, of course.

He puffed his cheeks out and gave a weary sigh. He’d left Thorn. Naked. In his bed. No clothes at all. For this. The gods knew he’d made some awful decisions but that had to be the worst. Damn standing in the light, he should’ve been lying in the warm.

Rauk was kneading his shoulder with his pale hand. “Hope it heals soon. Can’t stand in the shield wall with a bad arm. You stood in the wall?” There’d have been a barb in that question, once, but now there was only a hollow dread in his voice.

“Aye, on the Denied.” There’d have been a pride in that, once, but now all Brand could think of was the feel of his dagger sinking into flesh and he’d a dread of his own as he spoke. “We fought the Horse People there. Don’t know why, really, but … we fought ’em. You?”

“I have. A skirmish against some Vanstermen, few months back.” Rauk gave another long sniff, both of ’em chewing at memories they didn’t much like the taste of. “You kill anyone?”

“I did.” Brand thought of the man’s face, still so clear. “You?”

“I did,” said Rauk, frowning at the ground.

“Thorn killed six.” Brand said it far too loud and far too jolly, but desperate to talk about anything but his own part in it. “Should have seen her fight! Saved my life.”

“Some folk take to it.” Rauk’s watery eyes were still fixed on the mud. “Seemed to me most just get through it though, best they can.”

Brand frowned at the burned out wreckage that used to be a village. Used to be some folks’ lives. “Being a warrior … not all brotherhood and back-slapping, is it?”

“It’s not like the songs.”

“No.” Brand pulled the two shields higher up his shoulder. “No it isn’t.”

“They took my sons. They took my sons. They took my sons …”

Master Hunnan had been talking to a woman who’d got away when the Vanstermen came. Now he strode back over with the thumb of his sword-hand tucked in his belt, gray hair flicked by the wind about a frown harder even than usual.

“They came at sunset two days ago. She thinks two dozen but she’s not sure and I reckon fewer. They had dogs with ’em. They killed two men, took ten for slaves, and five or so were sick or old they let burn in their houses.”

“Gods,” whispered one of the boys, and he made a holy sign over his chest.